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Author Topic: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России  (Read 262407 times)

Knit tie

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1575 on: January 05, 2015, 01:26:21 pm »

So, the claim about there not being any investors to kickstart things thanks to the way things are economically and politically is true, but its not true because such claim is anti-Russian?
I never said that. I said that the article doesn't do into detail about the causes of Russia's problems with innovation-driven businesses, instead just stating that there are problems and then claiming that they all stem from the rule of oligarchs and Putin, while this is not true to any significant extent. And besides, the situation that the article describes is not even true nowadays - that's how things used to be right after the big socioeconomic meltdown in the 90s, when there indeed weren't any investors willing to put their money in something that wasn't guaranteed to bring profit. Things have improved since then.

instead all we get is an old song of "look how Russia's bad, it's ruled by evil oligarchs and evil Putin who cause all of its problems, hurr durr."

Pot.  Kettle.

If you go around posting conspiracy theories about how anyone who doesn't like Russia is actually a CIA agent living in Washington or Ukrainian jets shot down MH17 you have exactly zero legs to stand on here.
How is anything I've said so far a claim that "anyone who doesn't like Russia is actually a CIA agent living in Washington"? I was merely stating that the article that DJ asked me about was not very accurate in its description of Russia - media outlets don't need to be "CIA agents" to churn out factually inaccurate articles.



« Last Edit: January 05, 2015, 01:38:27 pm by Knit tie »
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1576 on: January 05, 2015, 01:36:57 pm »

Then you should link to something that proves it wrong and help explain it to the article writer and people who read it why it's wrong. I'll be waiting.
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wobbly

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1577 on: January 05, 2015, 01:39:32 pm »

So, the claim about there not being any investors to kickstart things thanks to the way things are economically and politically is true, but its not true because such claim is anti-Russian?
I never said that. I said that the article doesn't do into detail about the causes of Russia's problems with innovation-driven businesses, instead just stating that there are problems and then claiming that they all stem from the rule of oligarchs and Putin, while this is not true to any significant extent.

...

Ok I've looked through the article about 5x now & haven't found where he's making that claim at all. You actually sure your reading the same article?
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mainiac

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1578 on: January 05, 2015, 01:41:53 pm »

How is anything I've said so far a claim that "anyone who doesn't like Russia is actually a CIA agent living in Washington"?

Yeah it's been nearly a week since you took part in one of those conspiracy theories.  God knows you can't hold Russia nationalists to their words.

Russian revolutionaries should learn how to switch off geolocation before posting on Twitter :P

Washington DC, lol XD

I wonder if any of the replies to that noticed it.
All of them noticed it and made fun of it.
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
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Baffler

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1579 on: January 05, 2015, 01:49:33 pm »

Ok I've looked through the article about 5x now & haven't found where he's making that claim at all. You actually sure your reading the same article?

Quote
The longer this massive nuclear power is economically dominated by resource oligarchs, rather than a stable, independent business sector, the longer the developed world will have to put up with it throwing its geopolitical weight around in unpredictable ways.

Quote
The political leadership fears strong entrepreneurs who get rich because they fear that they’ll be competitors.

Quote
I would say that the failure of Russia to adequately use the talents of its scientists and engineers is one of the important reasons why Russia has not been able to make the transition to democracy. Because the government keeps thinking, we’ve got to modernize—but the way they choose to solve the problem just drives the problem deeper.

I found it.
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Knit tie

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1580 on: January 05, 2015, 01:51:26 pm »

Ok I've looked through the article about 5x now & haven't found where he's making that claim at all. You actually sure your reading the same article?
Well, there's this:
Quote
The ongoing inability to turn ideas into commerce has proved to be a profound problem for Russia—and ultimately for the rest of the world as well. The longer this massive nuclear power is economically dominated by resource oligarchs, rather than a stable, independent business sector, the longer the developed world will have to put up with it throwing its geopolitical weight around in unpredictable ways.
And this:
Quote
The political leadership fears strong entrepreneurs who get rich because they fear that they’ll be competitors.
And finally this:
Quote
the Russian leaders keep thinking that the way to solve the problem is by government edict—you know, create Skolkovo, and so forth. I would say that the failure of Russia to adequately use the talents of its scientists and engineers is one of the important reasons why Russia has not been able to make the transition to democracy. Because the government keeps thinking, we’ve got to modernize—but the way they choose to solve the problem just drives the problem deeper.

PSEUDOEDIT: baffle'd by Baffler.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2015, 02:24:21 pm by Knit tie »
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wobbly

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1581 on: January 05, 2015, 01:55:06 pm »

Thanks Baffler & Knit Tie. Seems a small portion of the guy's opinion to be dismissing the whole article on. You don't have to completely agree/disagree with something someone's saying you know. Things aren't that black & white.
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Mictlantecuhtli

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1582 on: January 05, 2015, 01:59:16 pm »

Ok I've looked through the article about 5x now & haven't found where he's making that claim at all. You actually sure your reading the same article?

Quote
The longer this massive nuclear power is economically dominated by resource oligarchs, rather than a stable, independent business sector, the longer the developed world will have to put up with it throwing its geopolitical weight around in unpredictable ways.

Quote
The political leadership fears strong entrepreneurs who get rich because they fear that they’ll be competitors.

Quote
I would say that the failure of Russia to adequately use the talents of its scientists and engineers is one of the important reasons why Russia has not been able to make the transition to democracy. Because the government keeps thinking, we’ve got to modernize—but the way they choose to solve the problem just drives the problem deeper.

I found it.


http://willembuiter.com/cap.pdf
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Sergarr

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1583 on: January 05, 2015, 02:00:10 pm »

The lack of investors is due to the fact that in Russia, people with money do not like to use them for anything that doesn't guarantee their profit.

Those who do usually interfere with the work of the scientist/engineers so much the quality of the end product tanks, if it even gets made.
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wobbly

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1584 on: January 05, 2015, 02:05:44 pm »

Except the 1st part of that statement is true everywhere not just Russia, so isn't the real reason.
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Sergarr

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1585 on: January 05, 2015, 02:10:10 pm »

Investors are quite literally people with money who use them for something which doesn't guarantee their profit.

There's the whole culture of start-ups in Silicon Valley which has caused the modern informational revolution to happen.

So you assertion about this being true everywhere is not fully true.
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mainiac

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1586 on: January 05, 2015, 02:22:02 pm »

If you are going to go with an extreme definition of guarantee then it's not true in Russia or anywhere else.  Russia invested a lot of money in pipeline projects that were cancelled.  That didn't make a profit.  Yet money was invested in them.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.

Knit tie

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1587 on: January 05, 2015, 02:54:50 pm »

This was supposed to be an edit, but there were too many ninjas.

To begin my commentary, the article states that one of the reasons why Russia cannot into innovations like Poland cannot into space is because Russian scientists don't want to become entrepreneurs - this is true, but how is this supposed to prevent other people who are not scientists from being entrepreneurs and creating businesses based on selling latest inventions? Surely, if a newspaper writes about "A new wave discovered by our scientists!," there is bound to be among its readers someone shrewd who can say "Hey, I can make money from that!" and forge a partnership with said scientists. It is true that people like this shrewd reader whom I just described didn't start to appear in Russia until very recently, but their dearth is not related to whether or not the Russian scientists want to try themselves in business, rather, it's the other way around, as lack of examples of entrepreneurs becoming rich by selling new inventions is what discourages the men who make these inventions in Russia from becoming entrepreneurs themselves. The stigma on business that the article claims is fundamental in confining our scientists to science did exist throughout the 90s with their rampant banditism that was masquerading as capitalism, and I admit I cannot say how common this stigma is today, but even if we assume that it is indeed so widespread as to make business morally objectionable in all modern Russian scientific circles, I would still like to ask how this stigma is supposed to always emerge victorious from a combat with greed? I am sure that there are many scientists in Russia who are not so morally pure as to avoid soiling their hands with entrepreneurship if they were to genuinely believe that this would bring them profit.

Secondly, I believe that the article is correct in saying that there is no strong community of investors who are interested in putting money into technology in Russia, just as it is correct in saying that there never was such a community in the times of Absolutism and Communism, but I think it is misguided is saying that the attitude towards innovation-based economy that the Emperors and the Gensecs had is also the attitude of Putin and co. and that this attitude is the main obstacle to the development of said community of R&D investors and the innovation-based economy in general in Russia nowadays. Modern Russia is radically different from both the Russian Empire and the RSFSR in that its economy isn't controlled in a top-down fashion by the government: an aspiring entrepreneur today does not need the government to get interested in him or her in order to start a business that sells innovative techologies, unlike in the times of Yablochkov and Sakharov, if he or she can get enough investors interested instead. Now that is not a very easy thing to do in Putin's Russia, that's correct, but not due to the government and its edicts. I agree that an official policy towards science that emphasises achieving new inventions for the sake of achieving new inventions and neglects the application of already existing inventions is not a very good thing, but even if we (erroneously) assume that this is truly what the Skolkovo is all about, I do not see how this can prevent all the investors who are not the government from taking prospective inventions and trying to make money by selling or otherwise commercialising them. Again, the article is true in identifying the problem, but does not exactly analyse its causes well.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2015, 02:57:47 pm by Knit tie »
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Sergarr

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1588 on: January 05, 2015, 02:57:35 pm »

If you are going to go with an extreme definition of guarantee then it's not true in Russia or anywhere else.  Russia invested a lot of money in pipeline projects that were cancelled.  That didn't make a profit.  Yet money was invested in them.
But they were expected to create major profit when they were created, at minimum effort.

Nobody could've predicted the situation we're currently in back then...
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mainiac

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Re: Russia Watch Thread/Ветка о России
« Reply #1589 on: January 05, 2015, 03:04:45 pm »

I feel like Knit Tie doesn't have an substantial objection to the article, he just doesn't like that it was written by a non-Russian.  The views seem pretty close to what Sergarr has said in the past for instance, just distilled through the prism of a professional writer.
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Ancient Babylonian god of RAEG
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« Last Edit: February 10, 1988, 03:27:23 pm by UR MOM »
mainiac is always a little sarcastic, at least.
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